Alumni Connections

Prior to the 2017-18 athletic season, New Mexico State University athletics and MyWeb GP, LLC announced a partnership allowing Aggie fans to spread their love of the Crimson and White with Aggie-centric emojis.

NMSU fans can now show their Aggie pride with customized Pistol Pete emojis on social media, texts and other messaging apps as they cheer on the Aggies. The customized emojis were designed by renowned artists from Marvel, DC Comics, Universal Studios, Disney and Blue Sky.

“While emojis have been around for a while, they remain very popular and this innovative new vehicle is one more way to spread the Aggie brand nationwide,” NMSU Director of Athletics Mario Moccia says. “We are excited to join over 30 schools in participating with MyWeb on this unique program.”

The Pistol Pete emojis are available in the Apple Store, and can be found by searching “Ree Stickers.” A portion of the emoji set will be available for free while the remainder of the set can be purchased for a one-time nominal fee of $1.99.

New Mexico State University is hitting the region hard, looking for the next generation of Aggie students while also connecting with Aggie alumni.

NMSU’s Marketing and Communications office launched an updated marketing campaign earlier this year to target potential students in New Mexico, El Paso, Arizona, Colorado and Southern California while also building Aggie pride with alumni. The campaign involves advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, television, radio and billboards. It also includes promotions in Google search results as well as in movie theaters, malls and airports around the region.

The advertisements feature bold crimson and white elements, large text and the mountainous desert landscape that surrounds Las Cruces. A special promotion, “I am an Aggie,” will also feature successful alumni as well as current NMSU students preparing to be future leaders.

This fall, enrollment of first-time freshmen at NMSU is up 11.3 percent from the same time last year. That marks the university’s largest increase in first-time freshmen in more than 17 years. Additionally, community college transfers at NMSU are up more than 17 percent.

A fixture at New Mexico State University games, Betty Meerscheidt was known to Aggie fans for waving her giant NMSU flag, which included a pair of red bloomers with black lacy fringe, from her seat behind the scorer’s table at the Pan American Center.

In the beginning, Meerscheidt would wave the flag frequently at both basketball and football games, but things changed, and she became very selective.

The flag also made appearances at rivalry games in Albuquerque, despite glares from opposing fans. “Our mom was such a grinner and had such an infectious smile – who was going to take that away from her?” says Marilynn Morris, Meerscheidt’s daughter. “She would smile her way out of anything.”

Janette Brunt, another of Meerscheidt’s daughters, recalls even the smallest fans enjoyed the Aggie emblem.

“Little kids would visit mom and wave the flag, and she had a marker and they got to sign the flag.”

Morris admits that, as a teenager, her reaction to her mother’s spirited display was more of a cringe.

“For me growing up, I didn’t like the flag,” she says. “When you’re in school and your mom is waving bloomers … I stayed as far away from her as I could. It was too much attention for a kid.”

Tiffany Acosta

Betty Meerscheidt, seated with her husband, Stuart, waves her well-known Aggie flag at a New Mexico State University basketball game in the Pan American Center. Meerscheidt cheered on decades of Aggies until her death in 2004. Stuart passed away earlier this year.

Memorial scholarship created for Giving Tuesday boosts students and their families

New Mexico State University’s first-ever Giving Tuesday event on Dec. 1, 2015, was a huge fundraising success, but that occasion was tinged with sadness for many at the university who had lost their friend, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences graduate Hannah Farbo, just the week before following a tragic auto accident.

Farbo’s parents and her best friend, Colleen Payne, took some comfort in establishing a scholarship in her honor to benefit students who shared her passion for horses and New Mexico agriculture. They created the Hannah Farbo Memorial Endowed Scholarship with an initial $13,000 in funds gathered from friends and family for Giving Tuesday, and matched dollar-for-dollar by the NMSU Foundation to create an endowed fund.

The scholarship is already making an impact in the lives of three students in the College of ACES who have received it so far. The first recipient, Alexandria Claycomb, a junior from Albuquerque majoring in animal science, said receiving the scholarship meant the world to her and her mother.

“I was honored to receive such a special scholarship created in loving memory of a successful, admirable, beautiful girl who was taken too soon,” Claycomb says.

The scholarship helped Claycomb’s family by offsetting tuition costs at a crucial time, when her mother, Giovanna Eisberg, was in school herself, working toward her Ph.D.

“I am now proud to call my mom Dr. Eisberg,” Claycomb says. “Thank you for not only granting me a scholarship, but one that truly touched my heart.”

Amanda Bradford ’03

Best friends Colleen Payne, left, and Hannah Farbo celebrate their NMSU graduation. Farbo passed away in 2015, and Payne worked with Farbo’s parents to established an endowed scholarship in her memory.

Esteban Hererra ’74

College of Agriculture, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences

Retired from a career of research in horticulture specializing in pecans

Congratulations to all of our Distinguished Alumni and our James F. Cole Memorial Award for Service recipient.
We’re proud of your outstanding achievements and service, and grateful for your commitment to
New Mexico State University.

Irene Oliver Lewis ’75, ’78

College of Arts and Sciences

Retired from a career in theater arts

Del Esparza ’91

College of Business

Founder and CEO of Esparza Advertising

MaryLou Davis ’69

College of Education

Retired from a career in education

Eloy Torrez ’70

College of Engineering

Founder, owner and president of SEI Group, Inc.

Sue Gerber ’84

College of Health and Social Services

Senior Program Officer of the polio team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

James F. Cole Memorial Award for ServiceFrank Seidel ’82

College of Engineering

The Alumni Association at NMSU has recently launched its own smartphone app – available for free download on Apple and Android devices – to better connect alumni and friends of the university. Find out about NMSU updates, important information and events – like our 2017 Homecoming celebration, set for Oct. 23 to 28.

Sue Gerber, an alumna of New Mexico State University working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help eradicate polio in the Middle East and Africa, visited campus this spring for the first time since the 1980s.

During her visit, Gerber, the senior program officer for the Gates Foundation’s polio team, spoke to students and faculty in the College of Health and Social Services about her work with the Peace Corps, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Gates Foundation.

Gerber graduated from NMSU in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree in community health. She later went on to earn her master’s in public health from Walden University, and will finish her doctorate in public health/epidemiology from Walden this year.

“The interaction students are having with the faculty and staff here is very impressive,” Gerber says about her impressions during her visit. “There’s really great student participation here.”

Gerber’s visit was hosted by the NMSU Foundation in collaboration with the College of Health and Social Services, which invited Gerber to visit her alma mater.

As the Gates Foundation polio team’s senior program officer, Gerber manages a portfolio of grants, contracts and consultations that support surveillance, program operations, operational research and innovations, and is a member of the global surveillance task team for polio. Before joining the Gates Foundation, Gerber worked at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and served as deputy director of the CDC Global AIDS program in Namibia. Gerber was also a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia, supporting that West African country’s immunization program.

During her visit, Gerber took a tour of colonias, or underserved communities, in Doña Ana County, visited a public health science class and hosted two roundtable discussions, one with students and the other with community health leaders chosen by CHSS Dean Donna Wagner.

The new director of New Mexico State University’s Alumni Relations Office is no stranger to the department.

Mallory Driggers, who took on her new role in January after earning her doctorate in educational leadership from NMSU in December 2016, previously served as associate director of the office before taking a role in 2015 as assistant manager of Barnes & Noble at NMSU.

Driggers has a master’s in educational leadership from the University of Texas at El Paso and a bachelor’s in journalism and public relations from Baylor University.

“I’ve been part of New Mexico State University for more than five years as a student, a staff member and an affiliate employee,” Driggers says. “I have listened to alumni talk about their Aggie pride and lifelong connection to NMSU. When I walked across the stage in December and became an Aggie myself, I truly understood the pride and connection to this top-tier institution that I had only heard about before.”

In her role as director of Alumni Relations, Driggers says she hopes to encourage proud Aggies everywhere to connect with NMSU through volunteering as an alumni leader, attending NMSU Alumni Association events and supporting the NMSU Foundation.

Mallory Driggers celebrates with Pistol Pete after receiving her doctorate in December.